FLYELEC · Quantum Optics with single flying electrons
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2015-04-01 → 2017-03-31
- EU contribution
- €173,076
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Quantum Optics with single flying electrons
Manipulation of quantum information coded into a quantum state of a single photon has been well established in quantum optics. For example, quantum cryptography, a secure way to transmit information, is a well known application. Such a development is owing to a long coherence time of photons due to the fact that photons are basically non-interacting quantum particles. On the other hand introducing correlations between photons at the single photon level is a challenging task due to the fact that they are non-interacting particles. In analogy to photons similar experiments should be possible with single flying electrons in a solid-state device. The strong Coulomb interaction between electrons allows us to envision new quantum entanglement schemes, which understanding is a key for quantum information processing. The overall objective of this project was to perform quantum optics like experiments with single flying electrons. A decisive step in this direction was the development of basic tools to coherently manipulate single flying electrons and to control the Coulomb interaction between such single flying electrons. In particular the research group aimed at realising a coherent beam splitter as well as a phase shifter for single flying electrons. As a result of this project the efficiency of single-electron transfer in the integrated circuit was improved from previously 90% to more than 99% what opens new application possibilities and impacts the quantum information processing technology development.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
In quantum optics, a single photon source as well as a single photon detector is the elementary building block for the manipulation of information coded into a quantum state, a qubit. When combined with beam splitters, polarizers etc., photonic qubits can be manipulated to process quantum information. A well-known example is quantum cryptography, a secure way to transmit information.In analogy with photons, similar experiments should be possible with single flying electrons in a solid-state device. The advantage of performing quantum optics experiments with flying electrons is the existing Coulomb interactions between the electrons. Photons are basically non-interacting quantum particles and they therefore have a longer coherence time than electrons. However, due to the absence of interactions it is more difficult to construct a two-qubit gate, which operates at the single photon level. This represents a fundamental limitation to the development of quantum computation with photons.Recent experiments have now demonstrated that quantum optics with single flying electrons is in reach. Indeed, it has been shown that a single electron can be transferred on-demand between distant quantum dots. In these experiments, flying electrons have been transported by a sound wave and high fidelity for single electron emission as well as single electron detection has been demonstrated. This opens the possibility to perform quantum optics experiments with electrons in solid-state devices, which we aim to realize with this proposal. Due to the fact that electrons in solids are strongly interacting particles, new quantum entanglement schemes can be envisioned, not possible with photons.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS · ParisCoordinatorFrance
Links
- View on CORDIS
- DOI: 10.3030/654603
- https://arquivo.pt/wayback/20160314215539/http://neel.cnrs.fr/spip.php
Data: CORDIS, © European Union